In 2010 Labour sagged to a narrow loss under the weight of thirteen years in government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Two wars, an assault upon civil liberties, and the financial collapse of 2008 had burnt out many supporters on the New Labour brand.
Amongst Ed Miliband's tasks in 2015 has been to face the legacy of Blair and Brown. So far he has approached that task by claiming that the Labour Party of the past was wrong (ITV, 2015). The trouble is that not much has changed from the New Labour days to make the party more progressive.
The party's five key pledges for 2015 are:
- A strong economic foundation
- Higher living standards for working families
- An NHS with the time to care
- Controls on immigration
- A country where the next generation can do better than the last
Beyond that very vague language is very little drama. The pledge to raise living standards comes with a new regulator for energy suppliers and a rise in the minimum wage - though only to £8 by 2020, which is only a slight advance upon the already expected yearly rise (BBC, 2014).
Labour's pledge on the NHS largely amounts to a recruitment drive, albeit much needed, but there has not yet been a commitment to the funding that the NHS has claimed will be needed. Even Labour's announcement on the election campaign's opening day that they would cap private profits made from NHS contracts is tantamount to admitting that Labour is not interested in ending the creeping privatisation that expanded so much under the party's watch (Wintour, 2015).
As for the pledge to build a strong economic foundation, analysis of Labour plans seems to suggest that they will borrow some and
cut less in order to eventually open up a £39bn spending gap over the
Conservatives (Peston, 2015). Yet Labour seem to be determine to convince people that they are sticking to the Conservative austerity script, scrambling to offer confusing reassurances to critics regarding whether they will, or how they will, borrow for spending after 2015 (Eaton, 2014{1}; Hope, 2015).
But the pledge that best represents the problems with Labour's thinking heading into this election is its commitment to 'controls on immigration' - complete with its own mug (Perraudin, 2015). It is on immigration that Ed Miliband thinks his predecessors have gotten it most wrong. A look at their proposals is even more disconcerting for progressives. They place a heavy focus upon allowing the rich and influential to move how they like, while denying access to the poorest. For those already driven away from Labour by the party mimicking the Far-Right in their language on immigration during the Blair and Brown years, or those that agreed with Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems in their opposition to child detention, Labour is doing itself no favours (Hasan, 2014).
Their lurch to the Right on immigration is matched by the party's shift in position over welfare (Eaton, 2014{2}). The party's proposals include a 'return to the contributory principle', which would mean the introduction of further conditions for access to welfare (Byrne, 2012). Nowhere will that weight be felt more than by those aged Eighteen to Twenty-one (Wintour, 2014), who under Labour would have extra conditions, including means-testing, placed upon them at a time when unemployment amongst young people is already threateningly high all across Europe (Tse & Esposito, 2013). The fact is that those supportive of generally accessible welfare for those in need are fighting a losing battle against public opinion (The Guardian; 2014).
Commentators have for some time been calling for Labour to come out with a strong and hopeful, passionate progressive message (Jones, 2015) - but what they have gotten is at best pragmatism - and at worst a rather cynical appeasement of the Far Right.
All of it amounts to one painfully obvious thing. Labour just don't really seem to understand how to shake off the disaffection that saw Labour finally lose its majority in 2010.
For progressives, alarmed by austerity being driven by social conservatism, Labour - historically the party representative of the centre-left - aught to be the safe and obvious port of call. But the party has leaned so far to the Right, with so few concessions towards radical, socialist and liberal Left-wingers, that it is hard to see Miliband's Labour Party as much in the way of an alternative to the current coalition.
That reality is particularly sad because there are positive ideas out there, such as profit-sharing proposals from the party's partner Co-operative Party (Boffey, 2015). But they seem to have found little public traction in a Labour party that seems to be allergic to trying to reform their pro-establishment attitudes - and determination to siphon money out of corrupt institutions to remedy the wrongs they have caused, rather than attempting to reform them.
Much as the Conservatives are struggling just to consolidate their position, Labour too seem to be lacking a positive spark. The difference is that Labour should have everything going for them. They are the supposedly left-leaning opposition to a government imposing unpopular austerity. Their nearest competitor for left-leaning votes, the Liberal Democrats, have largely burned themselves out through coalition with the Conservatives.
And yet Labour seems incapable of taking the initiative. The fact is that the polling suggests they will lose votes and seats to other progressive parties, and pick up votes and seats from the governing parties - but that is unlikely to be thanks to anything more than a negative vote, a reaction against austerity - regardless of whether or not Labour actually intends to end austerity.
Prospects: 34% for 273 seats (a gain of 16).*
Possible Coalition Partners: SNP (51 seats), Liberal Democrats (28), SDLP (3), Green Party (1).
Verdict: While they can likely expect some voters to return to due to the party representing a historically symbolic vote against conservative austerity, Labour have yet to do enough to win back progressive voters who went away looking for better alternatives. Like the Tories, they will do well to simply consolidate their position.
References
'A better plan. A better future.'; from the Labour Party, in lieu of a yet-to-be-released manifesto.
'Policy guide: Where the parties stand'; on the BBC.
'Manifesto watch: Where parties stand on key issues'; on the BBC; 25 February 2015.
'Ed Miliband admits Labour 'got it wrong' on immigration'; on ITV; 26 March 2015.
'Labour minimum wage promise would see £8 per hour rate by 2020'; on the BBC; 21 September 2014.
Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband vows Labour would cap profits of private health companies'; in The Guardian; 27 March 2015.
Robert Peston's 'Osborne's famine followed by feast'; on the BBC; 18 March 2015.
George Eaton's 'Balls binds Labour to austerity with promise of no extra borrowing'; in the New Statesman; 22 September 2014{1}.
Christopher Hope's 'We will borrow more if we win the election, Labour admits'; in The Telegraph; 29 March 2015.
Frances Perraudin's 'Diane Abbott: Labour's 'controls on immigration' mugs are shameful'; in The Guardian; 29 March 2015.
Mehdi Hasan's 'Yes, Labour “got it wrong” about immigration, but not in the way its frontbenchers seem to think'; in the New Statesman; 27 January 2014.
George Eaton's 'Miliband reimagines welfare for an era of austerity'; in the New Statesman; 18 June 2014{2}.
Liam Byrne's 'A William Beveridge for this century's welfare state'; in The Guardian; 2 January 2012.
Patrick Wintour's 'Labour to cut youth benefits and focus on path to work' in The Guardian; 19 June 2014.
Terence Tse & Mark Esposito's 'Youth unemployment could wreck Europe's economic recovery'; in The Guardian; 14 November 2013.
'Editorial: The Guardian view on welfare reform'; in The Guardian; 19 June 2014.
Owen Jones' 'Finally we see the Ed Miliband we hoped for'; in The Guardian; 27 March 2015.
Daniel Boffey's 'Ed Miliband could force firms to share profits with staff under new policy'; in The Guardian; 14 March 2015.
*based on Guardian Poll Projection, 8 April 2015.
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